Jason Blum is open to rebooting the Paranormal Activity series

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

The PARANORMAL ACTIVITY franchise is one of the most unlikely success stories in modern Hollywood history, with the first movie from Oren Peli making over $193 million off a minuscule $15,000 budget. In the years after the series would spawn five more films, making hundreds of millions worldwide. But the series seems to have been laid to rest, with no hand-held fright fests on the horizon, as audiences fled from recent films. However – Blumhouse’s Jason Blum is open to changing that – if the right idea were to come creeping his way.

While promoting HAPPY DEATH DAY with the movie’s director – Christopher Landon – the duo was asked by Brazil’s CinePop about the prospect of more PA films, to which he revealed there are no plans for a new flick, but that if Landon had an idea for a reboot, he would be all ears:

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY is on hiatus, but if Chris over here – who has done four PARANORMAL ACTIVITY movies –  if he had an idea to reboot it we’re very open to hearing it.

The most recent PA film, THE GHOST DIMENSION, was met with terrible reviews and made only $18 million stateside – a notable low point for the series, effectively putting the franchise into its current purgatory. Since then Blumhouse has certainly expanded operations, cranking out movies like SPLIT and GET OUT, and it seems people have been turned off the “found footage” angle, as audiences can only buy a person running around the house holding up a video camera for so long. 

This is obviously no confirmation that a new PA movie is in the works, but Blum seems to understand that the series has enough recognition left to still get some folks in the theaters, and with the right idea the franchise could be reinvigorated. I for one have a soft spot for the first film, as it’s the only movie that forced me to keep the lights on at night for a solid two weeks. But the series ran out of steam fast (sans the third film, which is fun), and I can’t fathom a new movie being able to make it feel all that fresh. Maybe the angle needs to be going back to the simplicity of the first film, with the focus on the actual scares and atmosphere, and not on new gimmicks like 3D. Who knows, maybe a new movie can introduce a new demon but feature an appearance from the demon in the first movie, who then proceeds to tell the new demon about a world larger than the one it knows, effectively launching a PA extended universe. Boom…mic drop!

HAPPY DEATH DAY is in theaters October 13.